Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted blame for failing to stop billions in taxpayer fraud sooner but insisted it should not define his legacy, a claim Republican lawmakers flatly rejected as unserious.

Fox News reported that the outgoing Democratic governor used a recent Minnesota Star-Tribune exit interview to admit failures on fraud while arguing other accomplishments should frame how he is remembered.

Walz is preparing to leave office in January after announcing on Jan. 5, 2026, at the State Capitol in St. Paul that he would not seek re-election. The fraud debate now sits at the center of how lawmakers describe his record.

Federal prosecutors have estimated the fraud at $9 billion. Walz acknowledged the problem in blunt terms, then tried to put a ceiling on its political weight.

"Fraud, should have stopped it sooner," Walz said.

He went further on accountability.

"We didn’t stop them. I accept that. I think there does need to be accountability with that. And part of it is that, yep, that’s with me, I’ll step aside," Walz said.

Walz compares $9 billion fraud to a White House ballroom

Even while accepting blame, Walz cast the losses as smaller than critics claim when set against other federal spending. He said he should have pressed state agencies harder, then offered a comparison that immediately drew fire.

"I should have been down on those agencies a little more, but I will tell you this, in the scheme of things, all the fraud that's been prosecuted, by the way, and all the fraud that's probably out there is less than the ballroom at the White House," Walz said.

The White House ballroom is expected to cost taxpayers around $300 million. Walz added that the comparison "puts it into perspective" while repeating that the fraud "doesn’t make it right."

He pointed instead to climate and livability work as the legacy items he wants remembered, and said fraud "tainted a lot of that" without changing what he called the fundamentals.

"This is the best state in the country to raise a child, and it will continue to be so because of those investments," Walz said.

Minnesota House Republicans answered on X that the $9 billion loss does define him, and that residents are watching what they called a blatant disregard for hard-earned tax dollars.

GOP lawmakers list failures far beyond the fraud numbers

State Sen. Julia Coleman told Fox News Digital that Walz was right about one thing only: fraud should not be his sole memory. Then she listed the rest of the record she wants attached to his name.

"Governor Walz is correct, he shouldn’t only be remembered for fraud," Coleman said.

"We should remember him spending our $18 billion surplus, raising taxes $10 billion, creating an unsustainable budget, letting rioters burn down Minneapolis, hurting our students and businesses with lockdowns and pardoning a child rapist."

That last point tracks a separate controversy already familiar to national readers. Walz helped approve a full pardon for Tue Lue Vang, a Laotian national convicted of repeatedly raping a girl beginning when she was 10. A DHS official called the pardon disgusting. The case later drew federal action, including when Rubio revoked legal status tied to the offender Walz had spared.

Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is running to replace Walz and could face Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November, said the fraud crisis on his watch will always define him.

"Tim Walz's legacy will always be defined by the out-of-control fraud crisis that occurred on his watch," Demuth said.

She noted Klobuchar’s praise of Walz as “an incredible leader who delivers for the people of Minnesota,” and charged that the senator failed to address the fraud crisis and skipped hearings in Washington. Demuth said Minnesotans deserve better than more years of the same approach.

Robbins: he was never serious and still isn’t

Rep. Kristin Robbins chaired the legislature’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee last session. She told Fox News Digital that Walz’s own words do not erase the pattern.

"No matter how hard he tries to spin it, Tim Walz’s legacy will be that he allowed rampant fraud," Robbins said.

She said his admission that he should have stopped it sooner is obvious, and that he could still act now. Robbins accused him of staying silent for months instead of using powers still under his control, even after two years of hearings, investigative reporting, and Office of the Legislative Auditor reports.

"He was never serious about stopping it and still isn’t," Robbins said.

She listed concrete steps she said remain available: fire senior DHS official Shireen Gandhi to signal that abuse will not be tolerated; block Minnesota from seeking a SNAP waiver that lets applicants attest to eligibility by phone without recording the call; and ask Attorney General Keith Ellison to prosecute Partners in Nutrition rather than approve a settlement. Partners in Nutrition administered federally funded meal programs at the center of the scrutiny.

Walz has claimed the state “immediately” took action. Robbins’s rebuttal is that the posture never matched the scale of the losses or the duration of the warnings.

The pardon fight did not end in St. Paul. After federal officials moved in, ICE deported the convicted offender whose release Walz had backed, closing a chapter state critics still cite when they describe his judgment.

Exit timing collides with a record voters can measure

Walz testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2026, as national attention on Minnesota’s fraud problems continued. A House Republican report has accused Walz and Ellison of turning a blind eye. Fox News Digital reached out to Walz’s office for comment on the latest lawmaker criticism.

For critics, the exit interview landed as an attempt to rewrite the scoreboard on the way out the door. The governor accepts blame in one breath, minimizes the dollar figure against a ballroom project in the next, and asks to be remembered for climate and livability investments while a multi-billion-dollar enforcement failure remains unresolved.

Coleman, Demuth, and Robbins are not arguing about tone. They are arguing about results: surplus spent, taxes raised, streets burned, schools locked down, a child rapist pardoned, and fraud left to run long enough that federal prosecutors now put the price near $9 billion.

Walz has also faced follow-on questions about that pardon’s aftermath, including when he questioned whether deporting the offender made anyone safer, a defense that only deepened the split over whose interests came first.

Later coverage captured the same pattern of distance from consequences, as Walz deflected after the deportation of the man he helped free. Separate fights, including sharp exchanges over infrastructure threats, have kept him in national blame cycles as well, such as when cyberattacks hit water systems and political fingers pointed both ways.

None of that erases the core ledger Robbins and her colleagues keep reading aloud. Hearings happened. Auditor reports landed. Journalists dug. The governor now says he should have moved sooner, compares the damage to a renovation project, and calls the rest of his agenda the real story.

Taxpayers who watched billions slip away do not need a legacy seminar. They need officials who treat fraud as a fire to put out, not a talking point to resize on the way out of office.